Jack O’Neill on he deck of his Pleasure Point home overlooking the 38th Avenue surf break in 2006. (Photo by Dan Coyro, Santa Cruz Sentinel)

In order to spread the word about the wetsuits, Jack O’Neill would put local kids in wetsuits to show how they could stay warm in the water.

Surfwalk02.7/30/98.BK Photo by Branimir Kvartuc/For The Orange County Register. Surfing Pioneer Jack O’Neill of O’Neill wetsuits fame poses by his “star” after the fifth annual induction ceremonies at Main St. and Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach Thursday. O’Neill set out 46 years ago to develop a wetsuit which was comfortable for surfers, in turn, making surfing a year-round sport. Today his company is wort hundreds of millions of dollars.

Jack O’Neill suits up in the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor before windsurfing off Santa Cruz, August 5, 1982. Inventor of the wetsuit and surfing world icon, O’Neill died Friday at 94. . (Photo by Dan Coyro, Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Jack O’Neill windsurfs off Santa Cruz August 5, 1982. Inventor of the wetsuit and surfing world icon, O’Neill died at his Pleasure Point home Friday. . (Photo by Dan Coyro, Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Jack O’Neill, inventor of the wetsuit and surfing world icon, died Friday at the age of 94. Shown above in 2006. (Photo by Dan Coyro, Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Jack O’Neill, second from right, drives his boat next to a basking shark to allow shark researchers to attach identifying tags in 1991. . (Photo by Dan Coyro, Santa Cruz Sentinel)

The waters in Northern California were so frigid that winter surf sessions barely lasted an hour before ice cream headaches forced surfers such as O’Neill to end their sessions, no matter how good the waves.

O’Neill, who was born in Denver and raised in Long Beach, revolutionized the surf world when he came up with an idea: a neoprene-based wetsuit that could allow surfers to stay in the water longer, an idea that every surf brand followed in decades to come, and a product most surfers in waters colder than 65 degrees use on a daily basis.

O’Neill, who lived in Santa Cruz – where the wetsuit division of the surf company still operates – died Friday morning, June 2, of natural causes. He was 94.

In a profile of O’Neill published in the Orange County Register in 2013, on the 60th anniversary of the wetsuit, O’Neill talked about how he conceived the modern-day model.

After leaving the ocean, O’Neill and his friends would burn old tires on the beach to thaw their numb bodies. “I was just looking for ways to keep warm,” O’Neill said.

Surfers had few wintertime options until O’Neill created the first surfing wetsuit, in its early stages a short-sleeved neoprene vest.

The guys in the lineup would crack jokes about the weird thing he was wearing, O’Neill recalled a friend saying: “You’re going to sell to five guys on the beach, and you’re going to be out of business.”

O’Neill landed in the surf business after his career took an unexpected turn. He had an office job in San Francisco in the early 1950s and returned to his desk one day after a surf session, his sinuses still filled with salt water. He bent over some documents and water gushed from his nose, drenching the paperwork. The mishap, he says, prompted his boss to fire him shortly after.

So he bought some balsa wood and began building surfboards. In 1952, he opened the first surf shop, in San Francisco. O’Neill still holds the trademark to the word “surf shop,” but he never sought legal action after throngs of other surf shops opened through the decades.

The O’Neill brand would evolve into one of the largest surf companies in the world, with the Irvine-based La Jolla Group acting as licensee for the company’s clothing division. His creation allowed the masses to comfortably surf year-round and spawned a more than $100 million wetsuit industry.

“He wasn’t trying to get rich or make money; the surf industry didn’t exist,” Brian Kilpatrick, director of marketing communications of O’Neill’s wetsuit division, said in 2013.

At the same time he opened his surf shop, O’Neill also had been wracking his brain trying to find ways to stay in the water longer.

His first attempt was with PVC foam, which he put inside his bathing bottoms. Next came a vest. He put plastic on the outside so the water would run off the surface instead of getting suctioned into the foam, but the creation wouldn’t last long in the ocean. Another problem: The fit was suffocating and restricted movement.

A friend working in a lab suggested using a material called neoprene. O’Neill experimented with the product and came up with the first wetsuit vest. In the ’50s, there wasn’t a big market for this new creation, especially in Northern California, where you often could go a month without seeing another surfer in the water.

No surfing magazines existed, so O’Neill got creative about spreading the word, putting his children in the suits on top of ice blocks in front of sports trade shows to show how they would withstand the cold.

Manhattan Beach-based Body Glove started experimenting with neoprene in 1953. But with few surf companies in the market, O’Neill had years to perfect the wetsuit.

O’Neill expanded the vest to a beavertail jacket and long johns, then to a spring suit with a vest top and short legs, and finally, the full suit.

“There was no competition in the ’50s; no one even thought of it,” Kilpatrick said. “We were virtually unchallenged.”

Those were the days before leashes, so surfers had to swim after their boards as the waves washed them to shore, and the soaking-wet wool sweaters dragged them down.

News of the wetsuit spread by word of mouth along the California coast, and surfers started calling O’Neill from around the world.

O’Neill eventually created the first full suit, called the “Animal Skin.” It would remain the best-selling wetsuit for the next 30 years.

In the ’60s, Gidget, the Beach Boys, surf magazines and movies hit the scene, sending more surfers into the water – and more surfers trying to keep warm in the ocean. In 1970, Costa-Mesa based Rip Curl started putting out wetsuits, and by the 1980s pretty much every surf company made a version of the wetsuit.

While most surfers praise the invention, others blame O’Neill for sending more people out in the water. “I get accused of making it too busy, making it crowded,” O’Neill said in the Register article. “Guys like to have their own waves.”

Today’s wetsuit business has grown into a major chunk of the surfing industry, topping $100 million in recent years. O’Neill continues to maintain more than half the market share.

O’Neill’s son Pat continues the company’s legacy as CEO of the wetsuit division.

In 1991, O’Neill was inducted into the International Surfing Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach, and in 1998 joined the Huntington Beach Surfing Walk of Fame. In 2000, he was named the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association Waterman of the Year.

Laylan Connelly started as a journalist in 2002 after earning a degree in journalism from the University of Southern California. Through the years, she has covered several cities for The Orange County Register, starting as a beat reporter in Irvine before focusing on coastal cities such as Newport Beach, Dana Point and Laguna Beach. In 2007, she was selected for a prestigious Knight New Media fellowship focusing on digital media at UC Berkeley, where she learned skills to adapt to the ever-changing online landscape. Using a web-based approach, she turned her love for the ocean into a full-time gig as the paper’s beaches reporter. The unique beat allows her to delve into coastal culture by covering everything from the countless events dotting the 42 miles of coastline, to the business climate of the surf industry, to the fascinating wildlife that shows up on the shores. Most importantly, she takes pride in telling stories of the people who make the beaches so special, whether they are surfers using the ocean to heal, or the founders of major surf brands who helped spawn an entire culture, or people who tirelessly fight to keep the coast pristine and open for all to enjoy. She’s a world traveler who loves to explore the slopes during winter months or exotic surf spots around the globe. When she’s not working, or maybe while she's researching a story, you can find her longboarding at her favorite surf spots at San Onofre or Doheny.

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